Which Valley dentists does AI recommend?

On October 18, 2026 we asked four AI assistants the kinds of questions people ask when they need a dentist: who is good with nervous adults, who does implants, who is open on Saturday, who takes kids. There were 25 questions, five for each of five neighborhoods. Each assistant answered each question once, in a fresh conversation.

The assistants rarely agree

Across 100 answers the assistants named 279 different practices. 216 of them (77%) were named by only one of the four assistants. 20 were named by three. One practice was named by all four.

If a patient asks ChatGPT and a friend asks Perplexity the same question, they will usually get different lists. A practice can be the first name in one assistant's answer and missing from another's.

The practices named most often

These are the practices that three or four assistants named for each neighborhood. This is a count of what the assistants said. It is not our recommendation, and it says nothing about the quality of care at any practice.

• Studio City: Studio City Dental Arts was named by all four assistants, 15 times across all five Studio City questions. Studio City Dental Group and Dentists of Studio City were each named by three.
• Sherman Oaks: Woodman Dental Care was named by three assistants, for a child's first dentist and for Delta Dental PPO.
• Encino: Farzad Dental was named by three assistants, in four of the five Encino questions.
• Burbank: Magnolia Dentistry and BB Dental Care were each named by three assistants.
• Glendale: Dentists of Glendale, Glendale MicroEndodontics and Glendale Dental Wellness were each named by three assistants.

We left out names we could not match to a single practice. Several names, such as "Sherman Oaks Dental", fit more than one office, and we can't tell which one the assistant meant.

Where the assistants looked

Three of the four assistants searched the web before answering, and 75 of the 100 answers came with sources. ChatGPT's sources were Google Maps links for the practices it named. Claude and Perplexity cited Yelp, Zocdoc, WebMD and Healthgrades most often, along with the practices' own websites. The sites of Studio City Dental Arts and Studio City Dental Group were each cited in 7 answers.

So a practice's chances depend on two things it can work on: its own website, and the directory and review profiles the assistants read. When those say the same thing about who you are, where you are and what you do, an assistant has an easier time naming you.

How we did it

• Questions: 25 plain-language questions, five each for Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Burbank and Glendale, written the way a patient would ask.
• Assistants: ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Claude (Claude Sonnet 4.6) with web search on, Perplexity (its fast search preset), and Gemini (Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite). Gemini answered from what the model already knew, without Google Search, because our API plan had no search quota. Gemini named no practice in 10 of its 25 answers.
• Access: we used each company's developer API, not the consumer apps. The apps can answer differently, and they may use your location or past chats.
• Counting: another model (Claude Opus 5.5) read each answer and listed the practices it named, in order. We merged spelling variants of the same name. Directories like Yelp and Zocdoc don't count as practices.
• One question asked about Glendale "or the east Valley". Claude read that as the East Valley near Phoenix, Arizona and named no LA practice. That one is on our wording.
• Each assistant answered each question once. Ask again and some names will change.

We don't publish which practices the assistants left out, and no practice paid to be in this report. If you run a dental practice in these neighborhoods and want to see what the assistants say about you, the free audit below asks them directly.